About to mark their 25th anniversary, a celebrated New York string quartet finds themselves at loose ends. With Peter (Christopher Walken), their cellist and de facto leader, suffering from the onset of Parkinson’s disease, the group’s violinists—Robert (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Daniel (Mark Ivanir)—have designs on first-chair. Meanwhile, Robert’s rampant egotism only heightens tensions in his marriage to violist Juliette (Catherine Keener). Where once there was harmony amongst these consummate players, there’s now more dissonance than can be heard in Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. Consequently, what should be their crowning achievement—an audacious performance of Beethoven’s sprawling "String Quartet No. 14"—might just prove to be their swan song.

"I aimed to explore the delicate balance required to achieve a gratifying relationship dynamic, one that frees the individual to ascend to his or her highest potential while remaining a significant contributing member of a team… When playing a piece for almost 40 minutes without a break, the instruments are bound to go out of tune… What should the musicians do? Stop somewhere midway and tune, or struggle to adapt their pitch, individually and as a group, until the very end? I feel it is a perfect metaphor for long-term relationships, inevitably challenged and demanding a constant need for readjustment and such fine-tuning because of the myriad ways we change over long periods of time."—Yaron Zilberman